Alternative medicine

Analysis and Comment (6)

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Being blindly and unrelentingly positive can be a burden to disease sufferers. Image from shutterstock.com

Monday’s medical myth: you can think yourself better

By Michael Vagg, Barwon Health

Of all the cultural beliefs about health and illness that saturate the developed world, there is none so pervasive and deeply held as the idea that you can “battle” an illness by sheer force of will…
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Despite recent attempts to retain traditional healing practices in China, modern medicine is supplanting traditional medicine there. Jean-François Chénier

Does traditional Chinese medicine have a place in the health system?

By Marcello Costa, Flinders University

Most of traditional healing practices are based on intuitive principles of diseases involving the imbalance of elemental qualities. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose systems of traditional healing…
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Gawler claims to have cured himself of advanced cancer by a series of unorthodox treatments including herbal remedies, meditation, coffee enemas and diets. Nick Olejniczak

Coffee enemas don’t cure cancer: reviewing the remarkable claims of Ian Gawler

By Ray Lowenthal, University of Tasmania

It’s not often that a scientific article in a learned medical journal becomes front page news but that was the case recently when a paper I co-authored with Dr Ian Haines of Melbourne’s Cabrini Hospital…
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Some complementary medicines fill a medical need while others are of no value whatsoever. nicholaslaughlin

Giving the right teeth to the tiger: creating an effective TGA

By Susan Walters

Some complementary medicines are useful while others are just plain quackery so any attempt to regulate the industry requires an understanding of this heterogeneity. What’s more, the regulator of the industry…
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Vitamins, minerals and herbal therapies should live up to the claims on their packaging. Peter Sunna

Consumers need the facts about complementary medicines

By Monika Merkes, La Trobe University

Two out of three Australians use complementary medicines to boost their nutrition, alleviate various symptoms and improve their overall health and well-being. There are around 10,000 products to choose…
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Some alternative medicine practices, such as homeopathy, have been proven to lack efficacy but remain in demand. Photo_Robson/Flickr

Panacea or placebo: doctors should only practise evidence-based medicine

By John Dwyer

Read the argument for the use of complementary medicine. The question of whether doctors should provide “complementary or alternative” medicines and procedures for which there is no scientific proof of…

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